Why do you bring "it took more time in the Colonies" and "Enlightenment already" together?

Surely, most North American colonies were founded as religious projects, escaping religious prosecution in Europe. But they were disintegrating as such after a generation, as utopias. With so much fertile land around and so much labour to be done, authoritarian rule did not have a chance. Now US is dense, squeezed, resources expensive for most - thus a large potential for Big Brother.

There is a serious discontinuity of religious "madness" of the first settlers and later Awakenings. Romanticism and those Great Awakenings were direct anti-intellectual reactions to Enlightenment, industrial revolution. Apparently, there are human aspirations that progressive developments do not satisfy still, nor understand fairly. And that is where there could be a serious similarity with Islam - the cyclical pattern of stronger anti-intellectual sentiments. But then, differences in this similarity would be just as interesting.

Utah was not the first territory the Mormons were escaping to. Yes, they were seeking a religous state, theodemocracy. But they developed in opposition to the established religion and politics. Thus shelving them on the Christian spectrum without a footnote is not remarkably illuminating.